Kolkata, Jan 14 (IANS): After almost 11 hours of a marathon raid that started a little before 8 a.m. on Friday, the team of Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials left the residence of veteran Trinamool Congress MLA Tapas Roy at around 6.30 p.m.
However, the raid and search operations that started simultaneously at the two residences of West Bengal Fire Services Minister, Sujit Bose at Lake Town in the northern Kolkata is still continuing on Friday evening.
In the midst of the raids, some ED personnel came out of the minister's residence in the afternoon with the minister’s son Samudra Bose and went to a nearby office of the minister for search operations there. However, that team came back to the residence with the son soon after and continued with the raid and search operations there.
While one team of ED personnel were conducting raid and search operations, sources in the knowhow of things said that the minister was facing marathon questioning from the central agency officials about his assets and property.
Sources further said that the ED officials left Roy's residence along with some documents and the personal mobile of the MLA. Roy himself confirmed to the media persons about the confiscation of his mobile phone.
He, however, claimed that the central agency officials had not found anything substantial against him in the course of the marathon raid and search operations.
The fresh ED action on Friday was in relation to the investigation on the multi-crore municipalities’ recruitment case in West Bengal.
The minister had been also summoned by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in August last year in relation to the same municipalities’ recruitment case, which he ducked. However, according to observers, the raid and search operations at Roy’s residence was a matter of surprise since despite being known for making controversial comments fueling infighting in Trinamool, Roy’s name was never dragged in any kind of controversy relating to financial irregularities.